The present invention relates to a restoration method and apparatus for quickly and effectively performing "field" splices on optical fiber.
Quick restoration of optical signal paths is essential when failures occur in an optical fiber network. The failures ranges from cable breaks due to contractor "dig ups" to environmental damage (such as lightning strikes and cable burn). To repair these types of failures, a communication field technician must find and isolate the damaged section of fiber cable, dig up the cable, and splice the fibers back together. Restoration splicing consists of using a quick, temporary splice that will optically couple the cut fiber back together. The most critical characteristic of an optical fiber splice is its insertion loss, that is, the signal loss due to misalignment of the fibers. The misalignment may be along the optical axes between the fibers, or the misalignment may result from too large of a transverse separation between the ends of the fibers. There exist in the art may different type of connector blocks including V-groove channels for locating the fibers prior to splicing. The V-groove channels address the axial misalignment alignment problem, but cannot improve insertion loss related to improper spacing between fiber endfaces. Index matching mediums (gels) may be used to improve the coupling between fiber ends. Oftentimes, however, the gel has bubbles, contaminants or other discontinuities that tend to migrate during the splice operation, and thereafter with temperature cycling. Such migration of the gel and microbubbles can detrimentally affect the splice quality. It would, therefore, be desirable and advantageous to provide a splice element that would eliminate the need to use index matching gel between the fiber endfaces.